


Hey

by MeansToOffend (goodmorning)



Series: Pick Me Up [25]
Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: 2017-2018 NHL Season, Goalies!, M/M, Pick-Up Lines, San Jose Sharks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-21
Updated: 2018-05-21
Packaged: 2019-05-09 21:05:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14723571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goodmorning/pseuds/MeansToOffend
Summary: "What is it about Joner that Aaron's been missing all this time?"





	Hey

For Aaron, it’s pretty sudden. One minute it’s a normal team breakfast, Jumbo cracking joke after joke while Herts smiles and smiles, trying and failing to keep from laughing, everyone else alternating between eating their eggs and egging them on. The next minute Pavs is making a quiet sarcastic comment, deflecting a joke like he deflects the puck, and the end result, just like on the ice, is one surprised goalie. Aaron is too far away to hear what they’re saying, but Joner nearly chokes to death laughing at it, and Pickles has to thump him on the back a couple times before he’s okay.

“You know,” Burnsie says, in a tone of voice that, from anyone else, would be much too loud, “my kids do that sometimes for attention. Jonesy, are you trying to tell us something?” He’s good, all wide eyes and faux disbelief, but Joner only snorts at him and goes back to his breakfast, just a hint of pink in his cheeks. Aaron’s first thought is that he’s glad Joner is fine, not seriously wounded in the ego or the esophagus, but his second…

His second thought is that Joner looks really cute like this, and that’s not really a thought he’s ever had before, but he’s definitely thinking it now. Actually, though, he’s less surprised by thinking it at all than he is by not having thought it before, because almost all his past relationships have been with other goalies. If Aaron has a type, it’s probably “quick and flexible,” he guesses.

But, of course, not every goalie feels the same way about this as Aaron does. Some don’t like to take work home with them, some prefer the steady and sturdy defender type or the flashy confidence of forwards, and some just don’t want to sleep with the competition, even if “the competition” is also a teammate. Maybe they have a point with that, because nobody knows when they’ll be traded, but Aaron’s never felt like any of his amorous encounters were a bad thing. It’s a little harder to be upset about a loss if you know the opposing goalie’s going to kiss it better afterwards. Logistically, it’s even easier if it’s your co-goalie, instead, especially on the road, when he’s only going to be right down the hall from you, and it’s only a short distance to drag your sad, sorry self.

Still, none of that really gets at what he wants to know - what is it about Joner that Aaron’s been missing all this time? Maybe it was the angle, or the laughter, or the food, unusually good for a hotel. Probably, though, it’s just that Joner has a pretty remarkable ability to make himself seem totally unremarkable. Even when he’s in net, making saves that are more than a little unbelievable, he still puts off that “I’m boring, so very boring, don’t worry about me at all” vibe. It’s kind of part of what makes him so solid in goal, the ability to go somewhat underestimated, to cover more of the net than he seems like he should be able to. So maybe that really is the reason Aaron’s wandering gaze has slid past him, not even registering that he’s been there all along.

\--

Now that he’s noticed that Joner is actually quite attractive, Aaron is finding it a little hard to think of other things. His eyes, such a pretty crystal blue, like _the Caribbean early in the morning_. 

“So, the Bahamas for the All-Star break again, then?” Cooch says. “Yeah, that was my vote too. I don’t know why Bancs wants to go to Italy, I told him it’s only a couple days and that really isn’t enough time to…” But Aaron is already daydreaming about Joner again.

He keeps his hair so short, maybe there’s a story there? Or maybe he just likes it that way. Aaron wants to run his hands over it, see how it feels. When it’s freshly cut, maybe it’s a bit scratchy? But Aaron would bet it’s _probably soft all the time_.

“Well, that’s definitely what they say, that the sand in the Bahamas is, like, super soft, and that it doesn’t make that terrible squeaky noise like that time we went to Daytona - were you there? Maybe it was before your time - where Dilly couldn’t actually deal with the noise of it, so we had to buy him some earplugs, and he said…”

Joner hardly ever laughs at people’s jokes, not even Aaron’s, even if they are closer to each other than to anyone else on the team. Or, at least, Aaron is closer to Joner than to anyone else. He’s not sure if that’s reciprocated, but they do spend a lot of time together, and if they weren’t close, Joner inviting him by so often _seems pretty unlikely_. 

“Wait, you’re not coming? Dude, are you going somewhere else instead? What could be better than hanging out with us on a beach, drinking a little more rum than we probably should and making fun of Tiers for getting, like, an instant sunburn?”

“It does sound fun,” Aaron says, fully joining the conversation for the first time, “but I kind of need to sort some things out here, you know?”

“Deller, did your washer break again? That’s not normal, you should really just buy a new one. I bet your landlord would be really…”

For a minute Aaron lets himself think about sand and sun and sea, about the team goofing off for a weekend, about himself goofing off with them, but he can’t. He really does have to sort himself out first, to figure out what his feelings really are and what he wants to do about them, so he doesn’t collapse into a rum-soaked mess on the soft, soft sand, spilling secrets he hasn’t even told himself yet.

“... _sure_ you’re not coming?” Cooch asks, one last time.

“Maybe next year,” Aaron says. “But send me the pictures.”

\--

So Aaron finds Joner attractive, and he’s not sure what he actually wants to do with that information. This is most of what he ends up thinking about on that weekend break, in long hours spent on yoga mats, alone in his house. Joner swears by yoga, both for stretching and for centring himself. Aaron finds that the stretching is very good, but that he gets bored of it quickly, unless he has something to distract himself with.

His thoughts of Joner are plenty distracting.

Of course, it’s easy enough to establish that he has sexual feelings for Joner, giant lanky string bean though he is. Romantic feelings, though, are a little harder to pin down, for Aaron. He doesn’t feel them all that often, not without knowing the other person quite well, but he does know Joner that well, he thinks, and he definitely feels the warm fuzzies, the desire to make - not a grand gesture, but a small one. To hold him quite close, and listen to his breathing, firm and resolute, the rhythms of his life at home in his chest, keeping him the Joner that Aaron is glad to love. Yes, he thinks, realises, embraces the knowledge: to love. He loves Joner. So that’s that.

Whether he could take one without the other is a harder question, and, in the end, his answer surprises him: that he would be happy and content for the rest of his life with Joner and his own hand, rather than without him but with everyone whose company he’s ever enjoyed. But he’d take casual sex, too, if that’s what Joner wants, because feelings change over time, if you want them to, and Aaron doesn’t have to be hurt by it, even if it might slightly sting to begin with.

So he has his priorities in order. But Aaron knows all too well that a relationship is made up of more than one person, and that with someone like Joner, who projects unconcern like an umbrella meant to shield him from everyone and everything, it’s not exactly easy to find evidence of what he’s feeling without just asking. Maybe he doesn’t like men that way, or goalies, or Aaron himself, but it won’t hurt to ask. Joner’s not the type to let a friendship drop just because too many feelings climbed on board, and he’s not likely to be freaked out by it either; even if things occasionally get awkward, he’ll just let them slide off his back, as usual.

The main thing is that neither of them is likely to make it weird - no matter what happens, whether they fuck or date or both or neither, stay together or break up, they’re still going to be friends. It’s really pretty reassuring, when he thinks of it that way.

\--

Aaron is lying on Joner’s couch, Joner having just finished an anecdote about the time he was eleven and played an entire game with his pants on backwards, and a friendly, familiar silence washes over them as he resettles himself in his chair. Aaron is staring at the ceiling and thinking about whether all pants might be backwards all the time - Joner might accidentally have worn them forwards, instead - when he remembers there’s a reason he’s here now, besides wanting to spend time with Joner. He turns his head until he’s looking right at Joner, whose eyes are closed. He’s resting his head at his usual precarious angle on his chair, and Aaron kind of wants to kiss him.

“Hey,” says Aaron, softly into the stillness. Joner cracks an eye open, tilting his head questioningly. “Would you like to go on a date with me sometime?”

Joner hums, his thinking hum. “Sure, sounds fun,” he says after a moment. “When?”

“Tomorrow after practice?” Aaron offers. “We could get coffee or something, I don’t know.”

“Coffee it is,” Joner says, a hint of a smile on his face. 

They lapse back into silence, until- “Hey, Joner?”

“Yeah, Delly?”

“How do we actually know for sure whether pants even identify themselves as having fronts or backs?”

“That kind of assumes pants are sentient, but good point,” Joner says. “Maybe we’ve been putting them on sideways all along.”

\--

It’s not that Aaron had worried at any point about what the team would say when they found out, but if he had, he might have been reassured that none of them seem to have noticed at all. But he hadn’t been worried, and he’s not reassured. Mostly, he’s annoyed. 

It’s more on Joner’s behalf than his own, because if your starting goalie starts actually smiling slightly more often and being a little less invisible among teammates, surely that should be noticeable to even the least observant of hockey players. But apparently it’s not, and Aaron kind of seethes about it to himself for a while, hoping Joner doesn’t notice, until one day Wardo comes up to them, quietly, and says, “Hey, congratulations on your,” he gestures between them, “thing.” 

And he smiles like he means it, and Aaron’s just annoyed with himself, at this point. “You could have said something sooner!” he says, and he can sense Joner next to him rolling his eyes and grinning.

\--

They spend most of their time at each other’s places now, having moved past “knock first” to “here’s a key, barge in whenever,” but Joner still knocks, just a polite tap to alert Aaron to his presence without having to shout. Aaron would tell him not to, but it’s honestly sort of sweet, really. So he knows it’s Joner coming in right now, and this is the reason he calls, “Aaron’s Deli, what kind of meat did you want tonight?” 

There’s a strangled noise, and he looks around to see Pavs, very red, standing next to Joner. And Aaron would blush too, except that Joner is - not quite laughing, but - helplessly giggling in the most adorable way. And, at that, Aaron laughs too, unsure if he’s ever been so happy in his life.

**Author's Note:**

> \- Aaron Dell doesn't even have a character tag. This is tragic, because his sense of humour is fantastic. See: his mask backplate.  
> \- Actually the best pickup line probably IS being clear about your intentions, really, so this was 100% necessary.  
> \- They're close in that way where you don't actually have to talk all the time, which is one of my personal favourites.  
> \- It was really refreshing to write a more 'normal' fic after the last few I've done.


End file.
